Were LA Lakers Chemistry Problems Product of Impatience?

Thanks to a mountain of preseason pressure, an ejector seat for a head-coaching chair and a knee-jerk approach to problem solving, the L.A. Lakers have suffered through one of the most chemically imbalanced seasons in recent NBA memory.

According to Mark Whicker of The Orange County Register, Lakers forward Antawn Jamison thinks that an awful lot of the team's issues this season have been caused by a less-than-patient approach:

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We knew it was going to take time, but in this day we don't practice patience. We don't have time for it. That was the case here. In all honesty, we wanted things to click right away and it didn't. So we had to practice what we preached. That was the most important thing, being patient. Playing for the Lakers, that's unheard of.

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After bringing in Dwight Howard and Steve Nash, the typically high expectations in Los Angeles soared into the stratosphere. This team wasn't just supposed to win now—it was supposed to dominate from Day One.

And that kind of thinking led to problems almost immediately.

An ill-suited offense and some slow individual starts (due to age and injury) got the Lakers off to a 1-4 beginning. At that point, virtually no chemistry had developed between the Lakers' big names, and the front office further delayed the chances of that happening by firing Mike Brown and bringing in Mike D'Antoni, whose style was totally different from the one that the Lakers had been employing.

It's here where we see the first signs of the self-perpetuating cycle of poor chemistry and impatience that buried the Lakers in the early going. Before the team could learn to work together, reactionary thinking in the owner's box forced it to start all over. Then, with new schemes to learn and new roles to adopt, the chemistry-building process went back to square one.

The panicky, cohesion-killing decisions weren't just limited to the front office, either. Head coach Mike D'Antoni tinkered with rotations and minutes from the moment he took over the big chair on the bench.

Was Pau Gasol a starter or not? Did the Lakers want to speed it up or slow things down? And what about guard play? Was Kobe Bryant a scorer or facilitator?

With every passing game, it seemed like D'Antoni instituted a different plan. As a result of that inconsistency—which was born of impatience, and maybe a little bit of fear—the Lakers floundered around without an identity for months.

Of course, the uncertainty surrounding roles, shots, positions and schemes had a deleterious effect on the locker room, too. Howard and Bryant sniped back and forth constantly. Howard bemoaned Bryant's in-your-face leadership style, while the Mamba hissed back about D12's reluctance to play in pain.

Impatience led to quick changes, which led to poor chemistry, which led to losses...which led inexorably back to more impatience. It was a vicious cycle.

It seems, though, that the Lakers have finally slowed their downward spiral.

At the moment, L.A. is playing as well as it has all season, posting a 14-6 mark over its past 20 games. Part of the reason for that has been a more predictable rotation and a better understanding of who's supposed to do what.

Again, per Whickman, Jamison said, "Instead of being worried that you're going to play only 10 minutes and you have to force things, you can let it happen."

Much of that newfound predictability Jamison mentions has come about, ironically, because Pau Gasol is sidelined with a torn plantar fascia. D'Antoni never did figure out how best to use the Spanish big man, but now he doesn't have to.

Jamison is right to have pinpointed a lack of patience as a source of L.A.'s chemistry problems. In the early part of the year, the better course would clearly have been to sit back and wait for the players to learn how to adapt to one another.

But now, it's too late for that luxury. With less than a quarter of the season remaining, the time for patience has passed. From here on out, L.A. will have to hope that its recent run has built enough camaraderie in the locker room and chemistry on the court to sustain it down the stretch.

It seems like Jamison has a pretty good grasp on what went wrong in the early part of the 2012-13 season. He'd better be careful, though; if he starts to sound like he knows what he's talking about, the Lakers might install him as head coach.